


Cornered Foxes

by FiveDollarMixtape



Series: The Way We Were [2]
Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Found Family, Hurt No Comfort, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 17:19:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15976904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiveDollarMixtape/pseuds/FiveDollarMixtape
Summary: Ground lives with her brother, Mulch and her mother, Soil in their den in a redwood forest.  She has fun with her brother, and really, that's all that matters to her.Then Mulch dies, and everything goes downhill.





	Cornered Foxes

The trees whispered.  They had no mouths or teeth or tongues, but the wind blowing through the branches and whistling against the bark was a voice all the same.  The kit enjoyed listening to them, her ears twitching at every breath and sigh and murmur.

In the light of the rising sun, she stood out as a darkened spot against the otherwise radiant morning.  Her fur was long and soft to the touch - fluffy, even, some might say. While most of it was a deep brown color, her head, forelegs, haunches, and tail tip were black.  Her tail also had stripes of the darker color adorning it, almost like rings. Her eyes were a bright and clear yellow. Her nose twitched as a particularly strong gust of wind blew past her, making the leaves shake and clatter together.  She sat and she listened and she breathed in the scent of the redwoods that surrounded her.

“Ground!” a squeaky voice called.  The kit turned her head, looking over her shoulder to see another kit standing in the mouth of their den.  At first glance, it was hard to tell if they were related at all - his fur was just as long as her’s was, but not quite as soft.  His head and back were black, as well as his forelegs. His flanks, hindlegs, and tail were a neutral gray tone, while the fur adorning his neck and chest, as well as a tiny stripe across his shoulders was a gray so pale it was almost white.  His eyes were the same color as the she-kit’s.

“Hi, Mulch!” Ground returned, voice just as squeaky as she grinned at her brother.  “What’re you doing?”

The tom padded out of the den and up to his sister, plopping himself down inelegantly next to her.  “Nothing,” he meowed. “I just woke up, and you weren’t there. What’re _you_ doing?”

Ground pointed up at the trees with her muzzle.  “Listening,” she meowed.

Mulch perked his ears.  He still for a few long moments, his ears twitching as the breeze blew past them.  He shook his head. “I don’t hear anything cool,” he mewed.

“It’s the _wind_!” Ground meowed, a note of laughter in her tone.  “It makes the trees talk!”

The tom tilted his head, obviously confused.  “Trees can’t _talk_ ,” he told her, voice slow, as if he was explaining that fact to a much younger kit.

The she-kit rolled her eyes.  “It just sounds cool,” she meowed.  “And it makes me happy.”

He nodded his head slowly, much like he was taking the time to understand something, before a smile grew on his face.  “I like it when you’re happy, Ground!” he mewed, voice cheerful. After a few moments, he added, “Do you want to do anything? We can play a game!”

Ground tilted her head.  “What game?”

“Uh…” Mulch narrowed his eyes as he thought.  “We could go exploring! In the forest!”

“No, you can’t.”  Both kits turned their heads back to the den, then craned their heads up to look at the larger cat, blinking yellow eyes.  Neither of them had heard their mother approach.

Like Ground, the she-cat’s pelt was brown, but a more dusty color than what her daughter’s pelt was - which sometimes made Ground wonder why she had been named ‘Soil’ instead of ‘Dust’, or something of the like.  Her forelegs, haunches, and head were a darker shade that matched much closer to Ground’s brown fur. She had a small patch of white on her chest. Her pelt was long, but it appeared a bit coarse rather than soft.  She had the same yellow eyes that she shared with her kits.

“It’s dangerous out there,” Soil meowed.  “And you two are still too little.”

“When _won’t_ we be too little?” Ground asked, tilting her head.

Slowly, the older cat shrugged her shoulders.  “I’ll decide when the time comes.”

Mulch let out a long, loud groan.  Ground laughed at the noise, her tail swaying behind her.  The tom kit glared at her, falling into a crouch and wiggling his haunches.

“Go on,” he dared, “laugh!”

Ground laughed harder, doubling over.  She let out a yelp as he leapt for her, stumbling over her paws as she tried to move away but unable to avoid the other kit smashing into her.  The two rolled across the clearing, giving each other weak and sloppy blows with their tiny paws. The fight ended as they rolled into a berry bush, the two of them laughing as leaves and sticks got tangled in their fur and as their mother approached to help them escape from the bush’s grasp.  

“You should be careful of where you’re going,” Soil advised.  “There won’t always be bushes to save you.”

“But we’re fine!” Mulch argued, laughing and shaking out his dark pelt as he was freed.

“You won’t always be,” Soil meowed before turning her attention onto her daughter.  “Be more careful next time.”

Ground narrowed her eyes, yellow gaze focused on a berry above her head.  She craned her neck, opening her jaws to try and reach it, sticking out her tongue to get a taste of it, only to be stopped by a mouthful of fur - her mother’s paw, she realized.  She turned her head, looking at her mother, whose whiskers were twitching just slightly in her amusement.

“Do you know what those are?” she asked.  Ground shook her head. “So should you eat them?”  Ground nodded - how else was she supposed to find out?  Soil sighed. “No, Ground, you shouldn’t.” The older she-cat reached forwards, picking her up by her scruff and gently pulling her out of the bush.

“Do you know what they are?” Ground asked as she was set on the ground.  Soil nodded her head.

“Chokeberries,” she answered.  “They help with nausea.”

“What’s nausea?” Mulch asked, tilting his head with a confused look on his face.

“It’s when you feel like you’re going to throw up.”

Ground’s nose scrunched in distaste, her eyes narrowing.  “Ew,” she complained.

Soil chuckled.  “Yes, I know,” she meowed, then looked between her two kits.  “Now, into the den. I have to groom you both.” The two kits let out loud groans of complains, even as they got to their paws and followed after their mother as she led the way into their den.

Inside, it took a few moments for Ground’s eyes to adjust.  They had made their home inside of a hollowed-out tree trunk, their nest at the very back of it along with a smell prey pile and a small stack of Soil’s herbs - that the kits were instructed to never even _think_ about touching, under any circumstances - in the back of the den.  The weaker parts of the roof, as well as holes in the bark were enforced with sticks, moss, and anything else the oldest member of the family could find.  Soil led the way to the back of the den, settling down in the nest and patting the space in front of her with her tail.

“Ground, you first.”  The she-kit pulled a face.  “I know, I know, that’s why we’re getting it over with - I’ll be quick, promise.”  Begrudgingly, Ground padded up to her mother and sat down in front of her, cringing as she drew her tongue over her dark coat.  She felt as the older cat tugged sticks and leaves out of her fur, her tail twitching behind her.

She hated the feeling of being touched, but she didn’t know why.  She could deal with it, sure, but sometimes everything just seemed too warm and too sensitive and too much and she just couldn’t deal with it.  There were nights when Soil and Mulch would wake up alone in the family nest and find her sleeping near the entrance, but had learned to grow accustomed to it - in fact, there was now a spare nest there just for that purpose.

Soil gave her one last lick between the ears before she lifted her head.  “There,” she meowed. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

“Yup,” Ground mewed, grinning up at her mother before she scampered off, ignoring the sound of her sigh as she headed towards the entrance of the den, ears perking to listen to the sounds of the redwoods while her brother was groomed.

* * *

Sometimes, Soil would take them out of the den at night to look up at the star-filled sky.  Ground enjoyed it - sometimes they were quiet, and other times her and Mulch would poke fun at each other and play or wrestle while Soil watched over them.  No matter what they did, she could listen to the sounds that the redwood trees made, and sometimes even imagine they had voices and were speaking to her - _there’s so much around you, Ground, so much you don’t know about, but someday you’ll get to know it all and we’ll still be right here with you._

Now, though, they were searching for patterns - Ground didn’t think they would be any, as she had just thought that stars were simply pretty dots in the sky, but apparently there were.  Soil pointed at the sky with one of her forepaws, and she did her best to look where she was pointing. “Up there,” she meowed, “it looks like a twoleg. Do you see it?”

Ground tilted her head, narrowing her eyes the pattern of stars she was pointing at - a straight line of three stars at the center was clearest, but everything else was harder for her to see.  “A little.”

“I see it!” Mulch mewed, nodding his head happily.  “Twolegs look _weird_.”

“They do,” Soil agreed with a nod of her head.  “They don’t walk on all four paws, and they only have a patch of fur on the top of their heads.”

Ground tilted her head, trying to picture it.  “Weird,” she agreed, nodding her head. They were silent for a long moment before she brightened, pointing at the sky with a paw.  “Look! A flower!” she mewed, grinning.

After a few moments, Soil nodded her head.  “A little one,” she agreed.

“Tiny,” Mulch mewed, nodding his head.

“It’s not _tiny_ ,” Ground meowed.  “It’s not small enough to be tiny!”

“There’s a fox over there,” Soil meowed, pointing with her paw before Mulch could respond and start an argument.  “And a dog next to it.”

Ground narrowed her eyes.  Sure enough, she could see a fox in the stars - it was a scrawny one, with long, spindly legs and a thin body, along with a large and bushy tail and a narrow snout.  Its ears stuck out like thorns on the top of its head, and beside of the image was a dog, larger than its counterpart, with large paws and thin but long legs and a broad-looking body and thin tail, along with a strong head and muzzle.

“Dogs and foxes are dangerous, though,” Mulch meowed, flicking his tail.  

Ground nodded her head in agreement.  “You said so, Mama! Especially dogs, cause they’re so big!”

Soil nodded slowly, purring.  “Good job remembering,” she told them, then rolled onto her belly to face her kits and took on a more serious expression.  “But, there are exceptions to the rule.”

Confused, Ground folded one of her ears backwards and tilted her head to the side.  “What do you mean?”

“There are cats out there, you two,” she began, “as mean as a fox cornered at dusk, and dogs as sweet as clover honey.”

The statement did nothing to clear the she-kit’s confusion, but she said nothing.  “That doesn’t make sense,” Mulch meowed.

Soil chuckled softly.  “Well, I’m sure it will make more sense to you when you get older.  Just promise to remember that for me, okay?”

Ground nodded her head.  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her brother doing the same.  “We will!” they meowed together.

“Good,” Soil mewed.  Ground turned her attention back to the stars, letting out a yawn.  “Tired?” her mother asked.

“No,” Ground meowed.

“Sure,” the she-cat mewed skeptically, “but either way, I think it’s time to go to sleep.”

Mulch let out a loud, drawn-out groan of complaint, but Ground didn’t have the effort to do the same as Soil picked her up by the scruff and began padding towards their den.

* * *

She woke to the feeling of a paw digging into her ribcage, and a voice hissing in her ear.  “Ground,” it hissed, _“Ground!”_

“Mph,” Ground mumbled, turning onto her other side.  “Stoppit.”

“Ground, _wake up_!” the voice was punctuated with a strong jab to her ribs, making her eyes fly open to look up at her brother, who was grinning down at her.  She glanced around the den - she was sleeping in her nest, while Soil was the only one sleeping in the family nest. Confused, she looked back at Mulch.

“What’s going on?” she asked sleepily.

“Wanna go exploring?” the tom asked, a cheery look on his face.

Ground’s nose twitched.  “Exploring where?”

“Out there!” Mulch mewed, pointing with his muzzle to the redwood forest.  Ground followed his gaze before she nodded her head.

“Okay.”

Mulch gave an excited bounce on his paws before he began rushing towards the trees.  After a moment, Ground gave herself a shake in an attempt to wake herself up and followed after him.

The forest was dark, but it was nothing that Ground couldn’t handle.  After a period of adjustment, where both of the sibling’s pawsteps were short and cautious, their whiskers twitching, the two were padding through the woods easily and carelessly. Their eyes were wide in awe as they looked around at things they had never seen and smelled things they had never smelled.  Twigs snapped under their paws and old leaves crunched under their weight, the sounds making them giggle and laugh, making a game of trying to make as much noise as they could.

“Why doesn’t Soil let us out here?” Mulch asked.  “It’s _fun_!”

Ground nodded her head in agreement.  “Maybe she thinks we’ll have _too_ much fun,” she suggested.

The tom kit shook his head.  “There’s no such thing,” he mewed seriously.

They padded onwards, only stopping when they reached a large berry bush full of dark blue berries.  Ground leaned forwards, sniffing at one of them curiously.

“Dare you to eat one,” Mulch mewed.

“I will!” Ground meowed, opening her jaws.  

She was cut off in her actions by the sound of a snarl.  

The two kits stiffened, their heads snapping around as they searched for the source of the sound, before it occurred to Ground that she didn’t want to know.  

“Hide!” she hissed to her brother, slithering under the bush and hiding among the leaves and branches and scent of the berries, waiting for her brother to join her.  

He didn’t.  

She carefully peeked through the branches and saw Mulch’s dark paws and legs, yellow eyes wide with fear as she watched a creature with a shock of red fur pad out of the underbrush and approach him.  She didn’t need to have seen one before to know what the creature was.

She’d heard enough stories about foxes to know.

Mulch tucked his tail between his legs, taking a few shaky steps backwards.  “Stay away from me!” he growled, as intimidating as he could make himself sound.  “I’ll tear your pelt off -” his threats were cut off by a loud, terrifying snarl that shook Ground to the core, making her fur rise to stand on end and the whites of her eyes show with how wide they were.

The fox lunged, picking Mulch up by one of his legs and throwing him into the air.  Ground couldn’t see much from her hiding place, but she could hear her brother’s yowls and screeches and whimpers of pain as he was thrown around by the larger creature.  

In all the stories she had heard, foxes were quick and methodical killers, ending lives quickly and skillfully before leaving - so why was this so different? She lowered her head, pressing her ears against her skull in an attempt to muffle the noise, but too scared to move her paws to cover them in fear that she would be the fox’s next target if she moved too much when a thought occurred to her.  

There was no feeling of realization that came with it - she felt too scared for that.  

_It’s having fun._

Finally, there was a sickening _crunch_ sound, and Mulch’s body fell to the ground with a _thud_.  His dull, lifeless yellow eyes were staring right at her, and she had to close her eyes tightly to avoid looking at him, finding herself glad that she wasn’t able to get a good look at him in the first place.  She felt herself shaking like a leaf, feeling more terrified than she ever had in her short life.

She heard the fox moving around, doing _something_ , but she wasn’t sure what and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know.  For one heart-stopping moment, she wondered if it could smell her fear-scent and if it would come after her next, but the berries seemed to hide her scent well enough and the fox moved off soon after.  Ground forced herself to take a few deep breaths, trying to calm down - she found herself unable to ignore the metallic scent of blood in the air - before she slowly slipped out from under the berry bush, eyes still clamped shut.  She forced herself to open them, and immediately regretted it.

Mulch was still staring at her lifelessly.  His fur was covered in crimson blood, gleaming gorily on his usually neat pelt in the dim star light.  His legs looked broken, bent the wrong way and making her stomach turn as she looked at them. Part of his side - it was like the fox had _eaten_ -

Ground turned away and vomited.

* * *

She felt numb.  Was she supposed to feel something? She wasn’t sure.  She didn’t care. Was she supposed to feel that way? She wasn’t sure.  She didn’t care. She felt numb.

Ground stared at the wall of the den, yellow eyes blank.  She didn’t move, she didn’t look around - she didn’t so much as twitch a whisker.  The most movement she did was the occasional slow blink as she stared, and the slow rise and fall of her flanks as she breathed.

“This is your fault.”

Ever so slowly, Ground turned her head to look at her mother.  The look on her face was just as blank as the younger cat’s. She stood at the entrance of the den, her ears drooped against her head, and her tail was dragging against the ground.  By all appearances, they both seemed to be feeling the same shock and grief, other than their eyes - where her daughter’s were blank, Soil’s were filled with anger.

“I don’t know what you did,” she meowed, voice dangerously calm, “but whatever it was, it killed him.  You know that, don’t you?”

Ground said nothing.

“Answer me, Ground.”

Ground said nothing.

With a huff, Soil stepped forward until she was standing in front of the family nest.  The she-kit didn’t even lift her head to look up at her.

“Get out of my nest.”

Slowly, Ground heaved herself to her paws.  She padded to her nest near the entrance of the den, collapsing into it with no thought for comfort.  She perked her ears, hearing her mother settle in her own nest, but she was listening for something else.

The wind blew.  Leaves and branches moved, rustling.  Branches and leaves clacked together. Voices, whispers, murmurs, breaths.

 _At least,_ her numb mind managed to think, _we still have the redwoods._

* * *

Ground absently batted a scrap of moss between her paws, watching as it rolled across the ground with every gentle pass.  A gust of wind blew by, ruffling her fur and blowing away her moss. The she-kit watched as it floated away, blinking slowly after it, her belly grumbling in the hunger she was trying so hard to ignore.  She let out a tiny sigh; she felt like any moment now, Mulch should have been calling her name, or pouncing on her, or asking to play a game with her. Her chest ached with how much she missed her brother, and her ears drooped against her skull.

She turned her head, looking back over at the den - she had left earlier in the day, slinking out of her nest as silently as she could to avoid the anger Soil had displayed before.  Would she be mad if she slipped into her nest, or asked for her to go hunting?

Slowly, Ground got to her paws.  She made her way to the mouth of the den, standing in the entrance and staring at her mother’s figure for a few long moments before she carefully crept forwards.  With her small weight, it wasn’t hard for her to be silent as she approached. She stopped next to the nest, blinking at her mother - was she asleep? She guessed there was only one way to know.

“Mama?” she asked softly.  Her mother’s ears twitched, but there was no other response from the older she-cat.  The silence in the den continued for a few long moments, and Ground steeled herself with a deep breath before she repeated herself.

“Go away, Ground,” Soil mewed.

“I’m hungry, mama,” Ground meowed, ears flat against her head.

“I said go away,” Soil grumbled, moving a forepaw to hide her muzzle with it.  Ground sat back at her haunches, a whine building up in her throat, but she did her best to swallow down the sound.  Her stomach rumbled loudly, making Soil let out a sigh. She gestured to the corner of the den with her tail. “There’s still some prey over there,” she mewed, “now _go_.”

Ground scurried over to the small prey pile, picking out a squirrel from the top of it.  She glanced over at mother, picking up a thrush and padding back to her nest, setting it next to the older cat before she headed back to her squirrel and left the den.  She settled down outside of the entrance with her meal, taking a bite of the squirrel - the meat was tough and hard to chew, the result of sitting in the den for two days before she had gotten a hold of it.  Her nose scrunched at the old taste that clung to it, but she swallowed it anyways and took another bite of it, not seeing another option for food.

 _I hope mama will feel better soon,_ she thought.

When she re-entered the den later that night, the thrush hadn’t been touched.

* * *

Ground watched as her mother padded into the den, a plump mouse in her jaws.  “Where did you catch that?” she asked, yellow eyes wide.

“It’s not for _you_ ,” Soil mewed bluntly, her own eyes narrowed as she looked at her kit, heading to her nest.

“But -”

“It doesn’t matter, Ground.”

The kit waited for her to bring out something for her to eat, but nothing appeared.  She tilted her head, confused. “What am I gonna eat?”

Slowly, Soil shrugged her shoulders.  “That’s not my problem, is it?”

Ground flattened her ears against her head, shrinking down to make herself appear smaller.  She didn’t understand why her mother was treating her so harsh as of recently, when she’d been so kind and caring to her before.   _Did I do something wrong?_ she wondered, watching as Soil began to eat her meal and doing her best to ignore the hollow feeling in her belly.   _Or does she just like Mulch better than me?_

Soil turned her head, narrowing her eyes in a glare.  “Do you want something?” she asked, voice sharp and tone cold.  Ground shook her head. “Then stop staring.” Obediently, she turned her head away.  She perked her ears, searching for any sounds coming from the redwoods. There was no wind allowing them to speak.  Instead, she heard the sound of Soil rising to her paws, padding up to her from behind.

“It would be so much better if you weren’t here,” the she-cat meowed.  Ground turned her head to look at her with wide eyes, meeting her mother’s own, which were narrowed and burning with anger.  “If you were with Mulch, then I wouldn’t have to deal with you. But instead, I have to sit here and deal with - _take care_ of - the reason my son is dead.”

“I- I didn’t -” Ground stammered, only to be cut off.

“Shut up,” Soil snapped, lips curling and teeth showing in the beginning of a snarl.  “You _did_.  You’re the reason he’s dead.  You killed him - don’t even try to deny it.”

“But I -”

Soil lifted a paw, and before Ground could react she landed a heavy blow on the side of her head.  She let out a noise of pain and surprise, falling onto her side from the unexpected hit and blinking up at her mother, eyes so wide the whites of them were showing.  “The fox should have taken you, too,” she growled. She turned on her heels, padding back to her nest with a lash of her tail. Ground did nothing but watch her.

* * *

Ground arched her back in a stretch, wincing as she aggravated bruises hidden beneath her fluffy fur.  She turned her head, giving a brief look to the still-sleeping cat who had given her the injuries before she padded out of the den - it was windy that morning, and the redwoods were talking.

A moon had passed since Mulch’s death.  Soil’s behavior was erratic - she would either be depressed, spending the day lounging in her nest and not getting anything done, or feeling angry and taking that anger out on her daughter.  At least, she supposed, she was being fed again - whenever Soil felt like it, at least.

She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel or think about the changes.  She missed Mulch, that much was for sure, and that much was a constant. She felt hurt - physically and emotionally, and wanted to know why her mother suddenly hated her so much.  Had she disliked her all along, and had Mulch always been the favorite? Was the sudden hatred just that - sudden? Under that, she felt angry, like every time her mother lashed out at her she wanted to lash back until she would just _stop_ and leave her alone, but she was also scared of whatever consequences would come of her snapping at the older she-cat.  She knew that she was being treated wrong, but what could she do? She was a kit who didn’t know how to hunt for herself or protect herself, and relied on Soil’s care.

If her father was around, would things be different?

Ground didn’t know much about her father.  She knew that he was still alive and out there somewhere, and she also knew that his name was Axel, but other than that she knew nothing.  She didn’t know why he wasn’t by Soil’s side, raising his kits with her, treating his living daughter and deceased son like they were his kits instead of vanishing into the night.  She hadn’t cared to think about him before - she didn’t need to, she had a good mother and a nice brother and the family of three were happy - but now that things had changed, she couldn’t help but wonder.  Would he help her? Would he care about her more than Soil did? Would he even go as far as to protect her from Soil, if he had to?

She shook the thoughts from her mind.  They wouldn’t help her. She did her best to focus on the sound of the redwoods instead, ignoring the little voice at the back of her mind that whispered _this won’t help you, either_.

Her ears perked and she stiffened as she heard Soil leave the den behind her, but she didn’t turn around to look at her mother.  She kept her eyes pinned on the trees, appearing to focus on them rather than on the other she-cat.

“Ground!” Soil called, making the kit flinch.  She hoped her mother wouldn’t notice, despite the fact she wasn’t even facing her.  “Get over here!”

Quickly, Ground got to her paws, bounding towards the older she-cat.  She slowed to a stop in front of her, her ears flat against her head and shoulders hunched, not knowing what kind of mood Soil was in that day and not looking forward to finding out.

“It’s about time you started pulling your weight around here,” Soil mewed, flicking her tail behind her.  “I’m going to teach you to collect moss, and to how to manage our nests.”

Ground stiffened, feeling her fur begin to fluff up in fear.  “But what if we run into… _something_ out there?” she asked, voice wavering just slightly as her nose twitched.

Soil narrowed her eyes.  “Then you’d better hope you can run fast,” she meowed, “or you’ll be joining Mulch.”  The _as you should have already_ was silent, but Ground knew it was there - she’d heard it enough times to know without having to actually hear it, the words lying under Soil’s tone like poison.  “Come on.” With a flick of her tail, the older cat turned and led the way into the woods. After a moment of hesitation, Ground bounded after her, following at her mother’s heels.

The woods looked different during the day, when golden light seeped through the branches and lay dappled against the forest floor.  It seemed more active and alive than it did at night, more full of energy. Before, it had seemed almost isolating - like the only things that could have been alive were her and Mulch, and at the back of her mind, Ground knew that Soil was somewhere, living and breathing, too.  Now, listening to the sounds of birdsong hearing their wings fluttering above her head, she knew for certain that she wasn’t alone, and she didn’t know if that thought comforted her or terrified her.

Soil came to a halt at the base of one of the largest redwood trees Ground had ever seen - not that she had seen many of them, even though she lived in a forest full of them.  Moss was growing on it, curling around the roots and coiling its way up the tree, crawling its way upwards. She sat back on her haunches, flicking her tail in a silent gesture for the younger cat to do the same.  Hastily, Ground did.

Her mother lifted one of her paws, not saying anything as she began to demonstrate.  She unsheathed her claws, extending her paw towards the tree and tangling her claws in the moss and slowly peeling a clean scrap of it away from the bark.  “There. Understand?” Ground nodded her head, even though she wasn’t completely sure if she did - she was too scared of what the consequences might have been to ask any questions.  “Good, then start collecting.”

Ground lifted her paw, unsheathing her claws.  She reached forwards, yellow eyes narrowed in concentration as she carefully tucked them into small spaces that she could find between the moss and the bark, beginning to peel off the moss.  Her piece was much smaller and shaggier than her mother’s had been, and she could hear her let out a _tsk_ of disapproval, making her tense slightly before she moved to repeat herself, hoping to do it right this time.  When she didn’t, Soil let out a disappointed sigh, making her flatten her ears against her head.

“Extend your claws more,” she demanded, sounding bored.  “Until you feel them start to hurt.”

Ground did so, her whiskers twitching at the ache she felt in them as she tangled them in the moss and pulled, watching the neat scrap she managed to pull from the tree with wide eyes.

“Those ragged pieces are going in your nest,” Soil told her.  Ground nodded her head in response, continuing with her work until the bark had been stripped clean of most of its moss, leaving only the roots to be covered with the stuff.  Soil silently showed her how to press the material into balls, demonstrating how to carry it - one ball in her jaws, one under the chin - just as quietly before she led the way to the den, the trek full of the noises of their pawsteps and the sounds of the forest.

Soil entered the den ahead of her, flicking her tail towards Ground’s nest.  She dropped off her bundles of moss, brushing her paws over all the coarse and old moss that currently filled her sleeping area - she’d have to get rid of the whole thing, she realized.  She pushed it to the side with a paw, smoothing out the moss she had collected with her forepaws until she was satisfied that it had become a suitable sleeping place. She sat back on her haunches, nodding to herself before she moved off to work on Soil’s nest, the bundles of moss left behind for her but the cat herself nowhere to be seen - Ground hadn’t even noticed she’d left, and didn’t know where or why she’d gone.  She pushed the thoughts out of her mind and set to work, pushing the old nest aside with a paw to get started on the new one.

* * *

She wondered how long she’d have to hide.

Climbing the tree had been in instinctive action.  She’d never climbed a tree before, only listened to the sounds they had made, but when she heard Soil approaching, calling her name - no, _screaming_ her name in what sounded like she was asking for bloody murder - she had bolted to the closest redwood and dug her claws into the bark, scuttling up the tree as if she was a squirrel rather than a cat.  The sudden onset of fear drove her to climb, hiding among the leaves as she listened to her mother rage in the clearing below her. She barely dared to breathe, her breaths coming in slow and steady as she watched the older she-cat with wide yellow eyes.

Soil’s hackles were raised, her tail lashing from side to side behind her as she circled around the small clearing.  “I know you’re here, Ground!” she yowled. “Stop hiding!”

Ground stayed where she was.

Soil let out an agitated growl.  “If you’re going to be that way, then fine!” she snarled.  “You’re just going to pay for it later!”

She didn’t want to know what that meant.  She didn’t know what had made her mother so angry in the first place - maybe, she pondered, she was visiting Mulch.  Ground, herself, didn’t know where her brother was buried. Every time she asked to see him, she was answered with agitated silence or a snarl or something worse, and decided that Soil had decided that she wasn’t allowed to see his gravesite.

“You’re listening to me, aren’t you?” Ground stiffened.  “I know you are - you’re too much of a coward to leave the clearing unless I make you.”  The she-kit winced, unable to deny the fact that it was true. “Well, I realized something today.

“You already know that it’s your fault Mulch is gone, don’t you? You already know that it would be better if you weren’t here, right?” Slowly, Soil glared around the clearing, as if if her daughter was hiding behind any of the bushes or trees then she would be able to feel her look.  She probably would. “You know that I thought you and Mulch should be together.”

That was knew - _you know that I_ thought.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Soil meowed, slowly and carefully.  Her voice was loud and clear. She was making sure she heard every word.  “Do you want to know what I think now?”

 _No,_ Ground thought, _No, I don’t._  The older she-cat spoke anyways.

“I think that you should be dead instead of Mulch.  You should be the one the fox killed. You should be the one I buried.”

Soil lifted her head, her eyes landing on the tree that her daughter was hiding in.  A smirk appeared on her face, making Ground’s blood turn to ice as she realized she hadn’t hidden herself well enough.  “ _There_ you are.”

* * *

Ground’s ears were flat against her head, and she cowered at the corner of the den as the blows rained down on her.  She did her best to ignore the pain, the glinting of Soil’s claws in the light of the midday sun, the anger burning in her chest, her inability to fight back.  Insults about how she should have been dead instead of her brother, how she was the cause of his death, how she was a coward filled her ears.

She sunk her claws into the ground under her paws, gritting her teeth as she looked up at her mother.  Fear and anger battled with each other in her mind, each one trying to outdo the other before she finally managed to open her mouth.  “Stop,” she growled.

Soil froze, her paw frozen mid-air.  Slowly, she lowered it. “What was that?” she asked, her voice cold as ice.

“I said _stop_ ,” Ground told her, the fur along her spine beginning to bristle.

Soil’s pupils narrowed, little more than black slits in cold yellow pools.  “I’m your mother,” she meowed. “You listen to me.”

“What _right_ ,” the kit snarled, tail lashing behind her, “do _you_ have to call yourself my _mother_?”

Soil was silent.  Maybe, Ground thought, she should have been scared, or worried about what would happen to her next, but anger had taken over her mind and all she felt was a thudding in her chest and adrenaline rushing through her - she was _ready_ for whatever the cat in front of her would do next.

“What?” Ground spat.  “You don’t want to fight a cat who’ll fight back, now? Is it too much for you, _Soil_?”

Soil took in a deep breath.  “Fine,” she meowed. “Fine - if I can’t call myself your mother, then I’m not your mother.  You go live by yourself, hunt for yourself, _die_ by _yourself_.”

“It’ll be better than living with _you_ ,” Ground hissed.

“I’m sure,” Soil mewed.

Ground let out one last snarl, the sound coming out loud and vicious before she stormed past the older she-cat and out of the den.  She left the clearing with a lash of her tail, her ears flattened against her skull.

Before, she would have hesitated.  Now, she considered it freeing.

She stomped into the forest, her anger still raging through her.  Once, she had thought that if she ever grew angry enough to snap at Soil that it would be over with, but now she had proved herself wrong.  She hefted a paw, smacking it at a stone and watching as it flew through the air.

Who needed parents in the first place? What did Soil ever do for her except cause her unneeded suffering? She could live without her - she’d show her wrong! She’d survive! She’d learn to hunt and defend herself, and maybe she’d even have kits and treat them a thousand times better than Soil had ever treated her! She’d show her wrong if it was the last thing she ever did!

She unsheathed her claws, striking at the roots of a tree, ignoring the stinging in them that the action caused.

Who needed Axel? He never even bothered to _try_ raising her and Mulch! What did fathers even do in the first place? Sit around and do nothing while mothers did all the hard work? Ground didn’t need them! She didn’t even need Soil, so why would she need a father? They were pointless, and she’d _never_ need one!

She lifted her paw, clawing at an acorn and watching as it soared through the air, letting out a furious yowl that scared off a nearby thrush.  “ _Parents_ ,” she hissed under her breath, not caring that there wasn’t anything around her to hear her in the first place, “are for the _weak_.”

She struck out at everything around her - bushes, trees, ferns, anything she could get her claws on she tore her claws through until she was panting and tired.  She stood, the raging anger in her chest dulled and exhaustion settling into her bones. She padded to the nearest tree, settling among the roots of it and curling into a ball.

For the first time in moons, she drifted into an easy, peaceful, and heavy sleep.

* * *

When she woke in the morning, her belly grumbled, reminding her of her first and most important problem.  She got to her paws and arched her back in a stretch, letting out a yawn before she shook out her pelt, feeling stiff from not sleeping in a nest for the night.

First things first - she had to find prey.  She could smell it, right? That was how cats were supposed to track things, she thought.  That in mind, she nodded to herself before she began to sniff at the air, her yellow eyes narrowed in concentration as she did so.  She padded forwards in search of any scents, not sure how long hunting was supposed to take but willing to find out - then again, it wasn’t like she had any other choice.

She came across the scent of a mouse, dropping into a sloppy hunting crouch and advancing.  She stepped on a twig, her weight causing it to snap under her paw, and through the undergrowth she could see the creature lift its tiny head before it took off.

Ground sighed, taking a mental note of her mistake - _watch out for twigs._  She’d catch the next one, she was sure of it.

She got to her paws and continued forwards.  It hadn’t taken her long to find the mouse, so she was sure her next target would be easy to find, as well.  Sure enough, she came across the scent of a rabbit, dropping into a crouch just as sloppy as before and advancing on it easily.  Her paw brushed a leaf on the ground, making it rustle softly, and the rabbit in front of her perked it’s ears before it ran off.

She looked down at the ground and her paws, making her sigh again.   _I guess I just have to watch where I’m walking,_ she thought.

Her next attempted catch was a squirrel.  She made sure that she was careful about where she was walking, but her prey somehow heard her anyways and ran off.  It made Ground let out a frustrated noise, flicking her ears back against her skull and stalking off.

Her final attempt of the day was a robin.  She dropped into her sloppy crouch, slinking forwards as quietly as she could.  Her fluffy fur brushed against some ferns, making them rustle and move, giving away her position.  The bird flew into the sky and let out a loud screech, that she later learned was a call meant to warn all the other creatures nearby of a hunter.

She went to sleep hungry that night.

Hunting, it seemed, was much harder than Ground had thought it would be.  It took three scared birds to figure out what a warning call was, two mice for her to realize she could attempt to pounce after her prey tried to run (not that she had had any success with that, anyways), a shrew for her to discover that she had to keep her pawsteps light, seven squirrels for her to realize that her hunting crouch was all wrong, and two hungry nights for her to realize that she didn’t know how to fix it.

The next two days were spent ignoring the gnawing hunger in her belly and doing her best to figure out how she should hunt.

She tried a few options, each of them tested to see how they would work on prey.  She tried moving so slow that she thought she might fall asleep, which didn’t work, as she grew too bored and impatient.  She tried something that seemed more like a battle stance than a hunting crouch - which worked surprisingly well, but not well enough, as the squirrel she was stalking was scared away.  She tried lowering herself to the ground, her belly fur brushing against the forest floor as she weaved around any obstacles in her path, but the noise of her belly fur dragging across the ground scared off her prey.  She tried lifting her paws high in the air before gently setting them back down, her large movements scaring off the shrew she was stalking.

She ignored the grumbling in her belly.  She ignored her frustration. She ignored how weak she felt.  She ignored her thoughts about her nest in Soil’s den and the meals her moth - no, not her her mother, _that cat_ would give her.  She ignored her thoughts about going back, because parents were for the weak and she wasn’t one of the weak.

She smelled a thrush.  She dropped into another one of her experimental hunting crouches - though, “crouch” wasn’t really what it was, as she had skipped that step of the process and had skipped right to the stalk.  She crept forwards silently, breathing slowly as she did so, her yellow eyes narrowed as she crept closer. The thrush kept picking at the ground, not noticing that she was there. She didn’t let herself get excited, just pulled herself a bit closer before she pounced, pinning the bird under her paws and killing it with a quick bite.

She dipped her head and ate it quickly, not even bothering to pluck the feathers from her meal or slowing down to enjoy the taste - she barely even chewed.  Maybe she would regret it later, but she didn’t care now - not as long as she finally had something to eat; something that she could finally sate her hunger with.  She sat back on her haunches once she had finished, letting out a satisfied sigh and licking her lips. A small smile appeared on them, and she perked her ears to listen to the sounds of the redwoods around her as a gust of wind blew through the branches.

 _Take that, Soil,_ she thought.   _I don’t need you._

* * *

Ground didn’t want her name.  

It was just something that was tying her to what had happened to her before she left the clearing - it was tying her to what had happened after Mulch died.  It was an attachment to Soil’s treatment of her, to how much she didn’t care about her but pretended like she did; pretended like she was a suitable mother.

She didn’t need a name.  She didn’t need an attachment.  She could take care of herself, and she didn’t need something like that clinging to her and holding her down.

Ground didn’t want or need her name, so she threw it to the side and she called herself nothing.

* * *

She thought she would have grown bigger as time went on - cats were supposed to do that, after all - but she hadn’t by much.  Most of the time, she was simply practicing her hunting, moving from a meal every few days to a meal every other day until she was finally eating almost every day.  She wondered if her lack of eating had to do with her lack of growing.

She dipped her head and began to eat the shrew she had caught, her tail lazily swishing from side to side behind her as she enjoyed her meal.  Her ears perked at the sound of an approaching cat, and she lifted her head, narrowing her eyes as a tom padded out of the undergrowth.

He was a tall cat, though he looked a bit scrawny.  He was a pale gray tabby, with white patches of fur mixed into his pelt, and his ears were tufted.  His paws seemed a bit too large for his legs, and his claws were already unsheathed - why, she didn’t want to know, but they were longer than Soil’s, making her start to feel nervous.  His eyes were dark green. The tom tilted his head as he looked at her, as if he was inspecting her, his eyes flicking to her barely-eaten shrew.

“What’s a kit like you doing out here?” he asked.  

She bristled, instantly defensive.  “What does it matter to you?”

The tom let out a hum, taking a small step forwards.  “Well, you look like you’re a good hunter, for a kit.”

She narrowed her eyes.  “Thanks, I guess.”

“Have any extra prey lying around?”

“No, why would I?”

“Never hurts to ask, does it?” He took another small step forwards.  “Listen, I’m not the best hunter - can’t tell if you can tell by looking at me - but… I haven’t eaten for a few days, so I could use a donation?”

The she-kit pulled her meal closer to her.  “No thanks.”

The tom smiled at her, but it didn’t look friendly.  “It’s not really a choice,” he told her, before he leapt at her, his claws digging into her pelt.  He easily tugged her away from her shrew, ignoring the hiss she made as he did so. She unsheathed her claws as he swiped at her ears, twisting to try and fight back, but found herself frozen.

 _I don’t want to hurt him,_ she realized, _I don’t want to hurt anyone._

 _You don’t have a choice,_ another part of her said.   _You either fight for the shrew or you run like a coward._

She lifted a paw and swiped at his face, even though she didn’t want to.  In return, she was picked up by the scruff of her neck and shaken, becoming too dizzy to fight.  She was thrown away from the tom, landing among the undergrowth with a huff.

Slowly, she pushed herself to her paws, staggering back towards the tom and the shrew.  She paused as she emerged from the undergrowth, blinking slowly at the tom as he ate what had been her meal.  He lifted his head, sending a smile her way.

“Sorry, kit,” he meowed.  “Looks like you’ll just have to work on your fighting, right?”

She turned, padding away from him with a lash of her tail.

* * *

She collapsed in the clearing, the paw she had sprained in a rabbit hole throbbing and wounds from the tom she had fought stinging as she lounged in the shade provided by the building in front of her.  Her ears perked, listening to the sound of the redwoods around her. She blinked up at the building in front of her, her ears twitching. Maybe she shouldn’t have thought that this was an appealing place to spend the night, but she didn’t have many other options.

She watched as a cat stuck her head out of the building, making the she-kit blink.  The stranger turned their head, calling something over her shoulder before rushing out towards her, skidding to a stop beside her and looking down at her with wide, worried eyes.  “Hey, are you okay?” she asked.

She blinked up at her - her fur was white, but she had a patch of brown tabby fur on the right side of her face and on her left ear, with a dark nose and pale blue eyes.  She had brown paws and a feathery tail with a brown tail tip. Slowly, she blinked up at her. “Pretty,” she mumbled. She wasn’t sure if the other cat heard her - she hoped she didn’t.

A tom appeared beside her - a ginger-and-black tabby tom with long, soft fur.  His chest, belly, muzzle, and tail-tip where white, as well as the inside of his forelegs.  His eyes were a pale green color, and some of his fur took on a warm, rusty orange tone. He had long whiskers on his head and muzzle, and when he dipped his head to sniff at her she could feel them brushing against her fur.

“You okay?” the she-cat repeated.

The she-kit pushed herself into a sitting position with a grunt.  “‘M okay,” she mewed, looking between the two cats - she _hated_ how pretty the she-cat was, and how handsome the tom was.  But mainly, how pretty the she-cat was.

“You’re bleeding,” the tom meowed, flicking his tail behind him.

“We can help with that, if you want?” the she-cat offered, tilting her head.  “All of us know a thing or two about herbs, here.”

The kit tilted her head.  “Us?” she echoed, hesitant.

“We’re a group,” the tom mewed bluntly.

“Are you not used to other cats?” the she-cat asked.  “We can help you avoid them, if you want.”

The smaller cat narrowed her eyes slightly, not sure if she should trust these cats after so soon after being attacked by that tom, but not seeing much other choice for being healed.  “Okay,” she mewed.

“Great!” the she-cat chirped.  “C’mon, let’s go get you patched up.”  She turned on her heels, flicking her tail behind her as she led the way into the building.  The tom gestured for her to follow after her, and the kit got to her paws, limping after the pale-furred she-cat.

“Did you hurt your paw?” the tom asked as they padded into the building.  

The kit blinked her eyes rapidly as they adjusted to the dim light inside.  “Uh-huh,” she mewed absently, looking at the wooden benches and holes in the ceiling and glass on the walls where light was being let in.  Towards the front of the building, things got more intricate - she didn’t even know the name for some of the things she was seeing. Cats wandered through the area, settling down in moss nests and eating prey - one cat she spotted was curled around a litter of kits.

“Well, we can take care of that, too!” the she-cat meowed, snapping her out of her reverie and making her turn her attention back to the two older cats.  “You just have to rest. My name is Flake, by the way, and this is Flame.” As she spoke, she flicked her tail towards the tom, who gave her a flick of his ear and a tiny dip of his head as he was introduced.  “What’s your name?”

 _Ground_ , she almost answered.  She snapped her jaws shut, silent for a moment before she spoke.  “I don’t have one,” she meowed. “I got rid of it.”

The two cats blinked at her - even Flame, who had yet to show any sort of emotion, looked surprised.  “Oh, well, I’m sure that we can find _some_ thing to call you,” Flake mewed, nodding her head as she spoke.  “Just wait - in a few days, you’ll have a name!”

“Again,” Flame noted.

“Again,” Flake agreed.  “So, let’s find make a nest for you and get you patched up!”

“I’ll get some moss,” Flame mewed, padding away from the two she-cats.  

“Looks like you’re with me, then,” Flake mewed, sending the kit a grin.  She led the way towards the corner of the building, where there were various herbs stacked, bringing back memories of Soil’s den that the kit had to push out of her mind.  She dipped her head to sniff at one of the stacks before she sat back on her haunches, watching as Flake pulled some herbs out of the stacks. She took some of the herbs into her jaws, chewing them up, making the kit grimace.  She padded up to her and began to lick them onto her wounds, making her tense at the unexpected contact - though, Flake didn’t comment on it. Whether it was because she was busy focusing on her work or she was just being polite, she didn’t know.  Next, she applied cobwebs onto the dressings, then laid some seeds out in front of her.

“These’ll help with the pain,” she explained.  “Otherwise, all you can do for your paw is rest.”

The kit nodded her head, dipping her head and lapping up the seeds in front of her.  

“Nest is ready!” Flame called, making the two she-cats turn their heads to look at him.  He lifted his tail from the other side of the building, and the two got to their paws and approached him.  The kit dipped her head, sniffing at the nest before she settled into it, relaxing into the soft moss and settling her head on her paws.

“Thanks,” she mewed after a moment.

“No problem!” Flake told her.  “You just rest - we’ll go tell our leader about you being here.”

The kit tilted her head, one of her ears folding backwards in confusion.  “Leader?” she asked, her nose twitching.

Flame nodded his head.  “Her name’s Storm,” he told her.

“We’ve got a bit of a… _system_ here,” Flake explained.  “I can tell you about it later, if you’re interested?”

She couldn’t say that she wasn’t, and spending more time with Flake was an appealing idea.  “Yeah, okay,” she mewed.

“Great!” the older she-cat purred.  “See you later, then!”

The kit watched as Flake and Flame padded off, feeling a fluttering feeling in her belly that she didn’t quite know the name of.  That night, she fell asleep to the sound of a distant howl.

* * *

“So, we have our leader, Storm,” Flake mewed, pointing with her muzzle to a gray-furred she-cat with sharp green eyes.  The kit nodded her head from where she sat in her nest, blinking. “Then we have the second-in-command - he takes care of things when Storm is gone, and things that just aren’t important enough for Storm to deal with herself.  His name is Claw, but I don’t see him around anywhere.

“Then, we have two ranks - the Highers and the Lowers.  The Highers are cats that have more authority in the group, and the Lowers are cats that have less authority; they tend to do a bit more work, too, but that doesn’t mean that the Highers are lazy, either!”

The kit tilted her head curiously.  “So, are you a Higher or a Lower?”

Flake let out a laugh that made her ears go warm.  “A Higher, obviously!” she mewed. “Flame and I wouldn’t have been allowed to just let you stay without consulting somebody if we weren’t, even _if_ we’re still in training!”

Slowly, she nodded.  “I guess that makes sense.”  

Flake nodded her head.  “So, what I explained was a bit of an oversimplification, but you understood it, right?” the kit nodded in response.  “Well, there’s also this whole belief system we have, but we don’t have to go into that, now - it’s a bit complicated, especially for a young cat _and_ an outsider.  You still understand, though, right?” she nodded again.  “Good! So _now_ , we can start talking about names for you!”

The kit blinked in surprise, then shook her head.  “You don’t have to, I’m fine,” she mewed. “I don’t need a name - I’m usually by myself, anyways.”

“But it’s weird just calling you ‘she’ or ‘her’ all the time,” Flake meowed.

Slowly, she shrugged her shoulders.  “I guess so,” she mewed. _Could just be ‘thing’,_ she thought.   _I mean, it is_ some _thing - or, uh, some_ thing _.._

“Calling you ‘Brown’ or something would be boring,” Flake meowed - she, herself, found that she wouldn’t mind being called Brown or something along those lines, but she didn’t argue with her reasoning - “and ‘Dirt’ or something like that would just be offensive, don’t you think?” She nodded, relieved that Soil wouldn’t be in her list of options.  Then, Flake let out a snort, eyeing the younger cat’s pelt. “You’re pelt’s pretty fluffy, you know - I think I’m gonna call you Soft.”

The kit’s eyes narrowed.  “No.”

“Why not?” Flake purred.  “It fits!”

“I’m not _soft_!”

“You are!”

“Am not!”

“Are!”

“Am not!”

_“Are!”_

“Am I interrupting something?” The two cats turned their heads to look up at Flame, who was looking at the two with an unamused look on his face.

“No,” Flake mewed quickly, sitting up straighter.

“Good,” the tom mewed, nodding his head.  “I hope our visitor hasn’t made you forget our hunting trip, Flake.”

“Of course not!” the she-cat mewed, jumping to her paws.  She send the kit a smile, flicking her tail behind her. “See you later, Soft!” The kit groaned at the name the she-cat had given her, watching as the two cats disappeared from view.

* * *

The kits in the group, she soon discovered, she didn’t like.  As soon as they saw her, they deemed her an outsider and thus, fascinating.  They constantly approached her and asked her questions, or asked her to play with them, or kept invading her personal space even when she obviously didn’t like it - though, when she asked them to stop, they did, so she could give them that much.  They also didn’t understand her namelessness, and had taken to calling her Soft as soon as they heard Flake call her the name.

“I’ve been wondering,” one of the kits, who she had learned was named Sand, began, “you’re only a few moons older than we are, right?”

She turned her head to look at Sand - a long-furred ginger-and-black tabby.  Her eyes were amber, and her muzzle was the slightest bit flattened at the top.  Her chin and chest were white, as well as one of her paws as some of the fur on her tail.  Her ears were slightly tufted. She had told her that once she started training, she was going to be a Lower - apparently, her slightly-flattened muzzle was the reason.

“Yeah,” she mewed, slowly.

“So where are your parents?”

“Yeah,” her brother, Red, mewed, his green eyes wide.  “Where’s your parents? They have to be _somewhere_ , right?”

Red was a ticked tabby tom, with darker ginger fur than his sister.  He only had white fur on the underside of his chin and black tabby markings on the top of his head and on his tail, along with black paws.  His fur was just as long as his sister’s. He was destined to be a Higher, and was constantly bragging about that fact.

The older cat tensed, her fur fluffing up just slightly.  “I don’t need them.”

“But you’re only a little older than we are!” Sand argued.

“Parents are for the weak,” she meowed, “and I’m not weak.”

Red almost looked hurt.  Sand definitely did. “So are _we_ weak?” the tom asked quietly.

“I - uh - _no_ ,” she mewed awkwardly, nose twitching.  “You’re just - just too young, still. It’s okay to need them when you’re little.”

“Did you need them before?” Sand asked.

She thought of being gently tugged out of bushes and quick washes, and she thought of a family of three watching the stars together before she slowly nodded her head.  “Yeah,” she meowed. “Yeah, I needed them - I needed _one_ of them before.”

“Just one?” Red asked.

“Just one.”

“Red! Sand!” all three cats turned to look at the cat who had called the kits - a red-furred she-cat with bright amber eyes.  The two kits gave her quick goodbyes, bounding off towards their mother and smiling up at her, chattering away about something the she-kit couldn’t hear.

She watched the three cats, and watched as a tom approached them with some prey in his jaws - a ginger-and-black tabby tom with forest green eyes.  Her ears drooped as she watched them, unable to feel like that was the family _she_ should have had - the one she deserved, but never got.  She turned her head away so she wouldn’t have to watch, reminding herself that she didn’t need parents - she didn’t need a mother or a father, because they were for the weak and she wasn’t one of the weak.  She ignored the part of her mind that was taking notes for when - _if_ \- she would have kits of her own, she would know how to treat them the right way.

* * *

“So, your paw should be all good to go, now,” Flake mewed, nodding her head with a grin on her face.  “What do you think about a hunting trip?”

The she-kit tilted her head, eyes widened slightly in surprise.  “You want to hunt? With _me_?”

“Obviously!” Flake laughed.  “You don’t eat that much, and Highers aren’t obligated to hunt for the group first, so we can catch ourselves some lunch! Besides, won’t it be good to hunt for yourself again?”

She blinked slowly.  “I guess so,” she meowed.

“Great! So let’s head out!” Flake turned, bounding out of the building.  The kit hurried to follow after her. Together, the two she-cats padded into the forest.  “Do you know how to fight?” Flake asked, glancing over her shoulder at the younger cat. She shook her head.  “We’ll stick together, then.” She nodded her head in agreement, watching as the older cat sniffed at the air, dropping into a balanced hunting crouch.

She tilted her head as she watched her.  Flake’s seemed more balanced than her own, but a bit more uncomfortable.  She quickly caught a bird, padding back to the younger cat and proudly displaying her catch.

“Uh… good job?” she mewed, her nose twitching.

“Thank you,” Flake purred through the bird, voice slightly muffled.  “Now, let’s go find something for you.”

She nodded her head, beginning to lead the way through the forest.  She caught onto a shrew’s scent trail, padding after it a short distance before she fell into her hunting crouch, pulling herself forwards - she made sure not to mess up, not wanting Flake to see any mistakes she might have made.  She pounced, pinning the shrew under her paws and killing it with a quick bite.

“That’s a weird hunting crouch you’ve got there,” Flake commented, padding up to her and settling down with her bird, beginning to pluck feathers from it.

She narrowed her eyes just slightly.  “So what?” she asked. “It works for me.”

Flake shrugged her shoulders.  “Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that.”  

She dipped her head, taking a bite of the shrew she had caught, blinking slowly at the other she-cat.  “You said you were in training before,” she mewed.

The older cat nodded her head.  “Yeah - the term is Trainee, here.”

“Okay,” she mewed, “so what’re you learning?”

“Hunting and fighting,” Flake told her.  “And how to be a Higher - so, how to be authoritative, and look my best.”

Confused, she tilted her head.  “Look your best?” she echoed.

“Of course!” Flake chirped.  “Being a Higher is all about appearances! In fact, I bet _you_ could be a Higher - especially since all that fluff you have seems to be natural.”

“You think so?” she mewed, looking down at herself.

“Yeah!” Flake chirped.  “Once you get older, I’m sure that you’ll be pretty easy on the eyes, Soft.”

She flushed at the compliment, and ducked her head in her embarrassment.  “Thanks,” she mumbled.

 _You like her, thing,_ she thought, but the warm feeling in her chest confirmed the thought.

“No problem,” Flake purred.  The two were silent as they finished up their meals and began to make their way back to the building, but the younger cat paused and dipped her head as she spotted a paw print in the forest floor, just outside of the clearing.  She sniffed at it, but she couldn’t find any scents clinging to it. She set one of her paws inside, surprised to find it to be at least five times larger than her tiny paw - probably larger than any cats’ she had ever seen.

“Soft!” Flake called.

“Coming!”

She bounded towards the other she-cat, surprised to see her standing next to - or, rather, plastered against - Flame.  The she-cat had tucked her head under his chin briefly, only to turn back to her and grin at her. The sight made a feeling akin to dread develop in her belly.

“ _There_ you are!” she meowed.  

“Guess what?” Flake asked, tilting her head.

“What?” the kit asked, looking between the tom and she-cat.

“Flame and I have started courting!”

 _But I just realized that I liked her…_ she thought.

 _Well, of course you didn’t have a chance, thing,_ another part of her thought.   _Just look at Flame - he’s a handsome tom, and you’re just a kit._

She didn’t know when she started a dialogue in her head, as if she were two different cats.

“Congrats, then,” she mewed.  Flame dipped his head in response, and Flake let out a loud purr.

* * *

Storm didn’t bother to introduce herself when she first spoke to her.  

“What has Flake told you about us?” she asked.

She blinked up at the solid gray she-cat, nearly shrinking in on herself at the sight of her sharp green eyes.  “Uh, ranks, and stuff,” she mewed.

“And stuff,” Storm echoed dryly.

“She said Highers were about appearances,” she mewed, “and Lowers did more work, but that didn’t mean Highers were lazy.”

“So nothing about what we believe in?”

“She _mentioned_ believing in something.”

Storm sighed.  “Come with me, then.”  She turned on her heels, flicking her tail in a silent summon behind her as she padded up to the front of the building.  The younger cat hurried after her, her ears twitching as she went.

The leader paused in front of one of the structures that the kit didn’t know how to describe - it had four legs, like a cat, but it had a flat surface on the top of the legs instead of a body, and it had no head or tail - it wasn’t even alive, despite the legs.

“We call this the altar,” Storm meowed, bunching her muscles and leaping to the top of it.  She swished her tail, inviting the kit to join her. She took in a deep breath, leaping upwards, her paws catching on the edge of the altar, hoisting herself up the rest of the way with a grunt, sitting down next to the larger cat.

“We believe in spirits,” she began.  “We think that the dead in our group wander the earth for however long they want to, until they decide to move on - maybe they decide to reincarnate and start a new life, or maybe not.  We also believe in guardian spirits - spirits who stay here, and protect and watch over our group.” Storm looked down at her out of the corner of her sharp eyes. “However, we believe that that spirit must occasionally be… relieved of duty, as it were, and must be from outside our group - be led to find us, you could say, then volunteer or be selected for the role.”

She narrowed her yellow eyes, confused.  “What do you mean? And why are you telling me all this?”

Storm sighed.  “I _mean_ ,” she meowed, “that it’s time for our guardian to be replaced - and you have been selected.”

It took a moment for her words to click into place in her mind.  “No, no,” she meowed, her eyes growing so wide the whites of them began showing and her heart began pounding against her chest.  “You - you _can’t_ -”

“We can,” Storm mewed, “and we are.”

She got to her paws, trying to leap off of the altar, but she felt teeth dig into her scruff and pull her backwards.  She was quickly pinned beneath the leader, feeling claws digging into her shoulders.

“Let me go!” she yowled, struggling against the hold the other cat had on her.  She didn’t seem to be affected. She watched as the rest of the group padded towards the altar, their attention captured by the commotion and the kit’s yowl.  She spotted Sand and Red in the crowd, the two kits cowering behind their parent’s legs but peeking out to look up at the scene.

“Flake! Flame!” Storm yowled.  “Step forwards!”

The two cats did so.  Flake’s eyes were wide, and she looked like she would rather be anywhere else, and even Flame seemed a bit disturbed as he watched the brown-and-black she-kit struggle against his leader.

“You two are nearing the end of your training,” Storm meowed.  “Let’s see how much you’ve learned. Send our new guardian to her new position.”  The larger cat stepped off of her, digging her teeth into her scruff and tossing her onto the ground.  She landed with a huff, trying to scramble back to her paws.

“If you’re going to hesitate, I can assign some other Highers to the job,” Storm mewed from the altar.

A moment later, she felt claws slash at her shoulder, and another set slash at her haunches.  A paw swept one of her forelegs out from under her, making her lose her balance and slam her chin into the ground.  A paw shoved at her shoulder harshly, making her roll onto her back - to expose her throat, she supposed - but she kept rolling so she would be able to get back onto her paws.  Claws dug into her flank, pulling her back onto her black. She turned her head to look at Flake, anger flooding through her as she kicked her in the face with a hindpaw as hard as she could.  As soon as she was released, she rolled back onto her paws and started running for the entrance of the building.

A cat - one much larger and heavier than her; she assumed it was Flame - slammed his forepaws on her back and slashed at her there, but she tugged herself out of the tom’s grip and kept running as fast as her legs would allow.  She sped out of the building, yelping as a cat tackled her and the two went rolling across the ground. She turned her head to see Flake, lifting a paw and unsheathing her claws to slash at her face.

Another paw landed a heavy blow on the side of her head, making her let out a hiss of pain, but she only narrowed her eyes up at Flame and kicked at Flake’s belly with her hindpaws, slithering out from under her as best as she could, ignoring the rain that was just starting to fall from the sky.

She froze as she saw a massive, hulking creature - something with dark, shaggy fur and glinting amber eyes, she just barely managed to process - standing just past the tree line, staring at the fighting cats without a care in the world.  While it was large and intimidating, it didn’t seem to have any interest in intervening in the cats’ fight, or making the cats into meals - it simply stood there and watched. Flame’s claws swiped at her side and a powerful set of teeth bit down so hard on her tail she worried about the bone and let out a loud yowl of pain, reminding her of what she was supposed to be doing - running.  She was pulled backwards by her tail, but dug her claws into the soft earth and ripped her tail out of the strong jaws before she took off into the forest, feeling more than seeing as the large creature’s eyes followed her.

For a while, she could hear the thumping pawsteps of Flake and Flame following her, but she squirmed through smaller spaces that she knew they couldn’t fit in - like narrow, hollow trees and spaces under fallen rocks - as she went, hoping to lose them.  It seemed to work, or, at least, she hoped it did. The large creature was quickly forgotten about.

She felt angry tears burning in her eyes as she ran.  She had thought that Flake, at least, was her friend. Sand and Red had looked up to her, she had thought, but they hadn’t said so much as a word and allowed for her to be almost killed, and all because they were so dedicated to their beliefs.  She let out a growl, flatting her ears against her head.

Maybe the only cats she didn’t need weren’t just her parents - maybe she didn’t need anyone.

She didn’t stop running until her legs were burning and felt weak, like she could barely walk, and the rain that had started during her fight with Flake and Flame had turned into a downpour.  She collapsed in the roots of a massive pine tree - the biggest tree she had ever seen - immediately falling asleep.

* * *

She didn’t listen to the redwoods anymore.  

She had other things to worry about - like hunting for her next meal and collecting moss for the nest she had decided to make at the pine tree.  Redwoods had become the last thing on her priority list, until they vanished off of it completely.

She slowly chewed on a bite of her shrew, her tail curled close to her side as she enjoyed her meal.  Her ears perked at the sound of approaching pawsteps, and she swallowed her mouthful, turning her head to face the source of the noise.

A cat emerged from the undergrowth - an old tom, based on the gray fur decorating his muzzle.  His fur was long and mostly white, but some of it was black - his ears, face, paws, and part of his legs.  There was also some black fur around his tail; or, rather, where his tail _should_ have been, as it was no longer there.  Part of one of his ears was ripped off, and his eyes were a bright and dazzling shade of blue.

The tom blinked at her.  “Well, this is a surprise,” he mewed.  “I haven’t seen another cat around here for a long time.”

“Great,” the she-cat growled, “so you can just leave and act like you never saw me.”  

The tom smiled at her.  “Aggressive, aren’t you?” She hissed in response, annoyed.  “Well, I’ve lived a bit too long to forget things.”

“Guess you’ll just have to deal with it, then.”

The tom chuckled.  “I suppose I will.”  He turned, beginning to pad away before he looked over his shoulder at her.  “You know, if you dig into the ground a little bit, you’ll be a bit more protected from the cold.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Whatever.”

He flicked his ears as he left.  She quickly finished her meal, and even though she didn’t want to and even though she didn’t need anyone else’s help, she quickly found herself following the old tom’s advice.

The next time she saw him, she was hunting.

“I’ve never seen a hunting crouch like that, youngster.”

She let out a squeak of surprise, turning around and hissing at the old cat as she listened to the mouse she was stalking scuttle away.  “You scared off my prey!”

The tom winced.  “Sorry - I didn’t mean to do that,” he mewed, sounding genuinely remorseful.  “I’ll catch you something to make up for it, how about that?”

She narrowed her eyes at him.  “Why would you do that?”

“Life’s too short for grudges,” he meowed.

“No, it’s not.”

He let out an amused purr, his whiskers twitching.  “Well, mine is, anyway. C’mon, let’s go find you a replacement.”  He turned and padded off into the undergrowth. She hesitated, her fluffy tail flicking behind her as she watched him.  “Are you coming, or not?” the tom called, not bothering to look back at her.

She gritted her teeth in annoyance, but bounded after him anyways.

“What’s your name, youngster?” the tom asked once she caught up.

“I don’t have one,” she mewed.  “I got rid of it.”

“That’s alright,” the tom meowed, making her look up at him with wide, surprised eyes.  “I don’t have one, either.”

“Then what do cats call you?”

“Cats don’t have to call me anything,” he meowed.  “They can point at me, or just say ‘you’. Isn’t that easy enough for cats like us?”

She frowned.  “Cats try to give _me_ names,” she mewed, her tone making it sound almost like a complaint.

He chuckled.  “Cats tend to do that,” he told her.  “They don’t understand cats like us.” He paused, his ears angling backwards - she took it as a gesture for her to be silent.  He fell into a hunting crouch, pulling himself forwards for a few long moments before he pounced on whatever he was hunting, padding back to her with a plump squirrel in his jaws.

“Here you go,” he purred, setting it at her paws, “enjoy.”

Her nose twitched, and she was silent for a few moments.  “Thank you,” she mewed quickly, before she dipped her head to pick up the squirrel and began rushing back to the pine tree.

After that, she saw him at his den - a shabby thing, made of woven sticks and branches and patched together with moss and dried mud.  

“This is sad,” she told him.

He laughed at her.  “To you, probably,” he agreed.  “But it’s home to me, and that’s what matters.”

“You have a weird sense of home.”

“Maybe I do,” the tom agreed.  “But it _is_ a den, isn’t it?”

She narrowed her yellow eyes.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That I’m not just sleeping under a pine tree,” he purred.

She rolled her eyes and padded away, his amused chuckles following after her.

They saw each other nearly every day after that - whether it be by hunting or whatever else, the two kept bumping into each other.  They talked about anything, from how their hunting went that day to how they had ended up without names (the old tom, she discovered, had simply never been given one, and she didn’t elaborate past ‘I didn’t want it anymore’).  There were a few times where she had growled or snarled at the tom, but he only laughed and brushed her off before starting a conversation. She found herself growing close to him, even though she didn’t want to. When she didn’t see him for a day, she grew worried, and she made her way to his den to find him.

She stuck her head in his den, spotting him curled up in his nest.  She stepped into the den and up to his nest, poking at his side with a paw quickly.  “Hey, wake up,” she mewed, narrowing her eyes. “Sleeping all day is bad for you.”

He didn’t open his eyes.  It took a moment for her to register that his flanks weren’t rising and falling with his breaths - they weren’t moving at all.

She felt her heart sink, her ears flattening against her head.  He hadn’t seen another cat in the area for a long time, he had said.

She padded out of the den and started digging into the earth, ignoring how dirty her pelt got and focusing on her task, not stopping for breaks or to hunt, despite how hungry she got and the fact that she had to work well into the night.  She stepped out of the hole she had dug once she deemed it big enough, padding back into the den and dragging the old tom out of the den. Gracelessly, she shoved him into the hole she had dug, then began shoving the dirt back on top of him.  She didn’t finish her work until morning, and when she had finished, she sat and looked at the newly-buried grave for too long for her to know for sure.

 _Maybe,_ she thought, _not all cats are as bad as I thought._

When she padded away, deciding to leave the forest behind her and move to somewhere new.

* * *

The she-cat barely noticed when she crossed the scent line.  She padded along the black beach, the sand feeling strange under her paws, but she decided it was a nice kind of strange.  “Alright, thing,” she mewed to herself, “we’ve gotta find a place to sleep.” She let out a sigh. “And now I’m talking to myself.   _Great_.”  She turned to the cliffs, pausing in place to look up at the goliath before she continued forwards.  Her paws dragged in the dark sand slightly, sniffing at the stone as she searched for a place for her to rest.  She could smell cat scents, but she didn’t care - that must have just meant that the area was safe and full of prey, right? A perfect place for her to set up for a bit before moving on to find a more permanent place to stay.  At least, that was what she tried to comfort herself with, ignoring memories of a white she-cat with tabby patches and a ginger-and-black tabby tom.

She found a tiny alcove in the stone that was big enough for her to fit into.  She slipped into it, settling down and setting her head on her paws. Her ears perked, and she listened to the sound of the waves lapping on the shore.  She let her yellow eyes drift closed and her breathing slow, easily falling asleep.

When she woke, she lifted her head, feeling as if she’d only taken a moment-long doze.  Her belly grumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since she’d buried the old tom - that had been two days ago.  She got to her paws and slipped out of her alcove, letting out a yawn and arching her back in a stretch. She was still tired, but she supposed it was better to sleep on a full belly than an empty one.  She padded forwards, sniffing the air for prey before she paused.

There, on the beach, were fish - flopping around and simply waiting for her to hunt them.  Some, she noted, were already dead, in piles and silently beckoning to her. Too tired to realize how stupid it was for her to eat freshly-killed prey, she padded up to one of the piles and picked up a fish, settling down and beginning to wolf down her easy meal.  Making sure that the bones of the previous were picked clean, the yellow-eyed she-cat picked up another fish and happily dug her teeth into it, slowing down to analyze the flavor and decide if she liked it, only to be interrupted by a voice before she could make her decision.

“Hey!” a voice yowled.  “That’s our fish!”

Her head jerked up at the voice, and she leapt to her paws.  She curled her lips into a snarl, her hackles rising and a growl rising up in her throat, her tail swaying from side to side behind her.  Despite her defensive position, her claws remained sheathed.

One of the she-cats seemed more aggressive than the other - her lips were peeled back in a snarl, as well.  Most of her pelt was blue-gray, but the fur on her chest and toes were white. There was also a tiny white mark on her forehead, and some white on her chin.  Her eyes were a dark green color. The other cat was mostly white. Her ears, paws, and face were a smokey-gray color, and her eyes were a pale, icy blue.

“You’re on WaveClan land,” the aggressive cat hissed.  “You’re trespassing. _And_ stealing prey.”

“Shouldn’t have left it here, then,” she responded in a growl, flicking her ears back against her skull.

“That scent line you crossed makes it ours,” the calmer cat meowed, her tone cold.

She rolled her eyes.  “And what, wander around some more? No, thanks.”

The aggressive cat took a step forwards, unsheathing her claws.  “Then we’ll have to make you leave.”

Her eyes widened just slightly, and she took a small step back.  “I can’t fight,” she meowed, hoping that would make the two back off - they wouldn’t fight a cat that couldn’t defend themselves, right? They’d take pity on her, hopefully.

“Then get lost,” the she-cat meowed.  “You trespassed and stole our food, you either get out now or we chase you out.  That’s how Clans and territories work.”

Suddenly angry, and even though she wasn’t even close to the other she-cat’s size, she thrust her muzzle into the stranger’s face.  “I’m not leaving,” she meowed. “Not until I want to.”

“Then today isn’t your lucky day,” the calmer cat informed her.

The aggressive cat growled, and without hesitation, she reared up onto her hind legs.  She brought her paws down hard on the smaller cat’s head, sending her slamming into the black sand with a surprised squeak.  She boxed her ears afterwards, cutting a few scratches into them as she did so. She scuttled backwards, looking up at the two she-cats with wide eyes, keeping crouched low to the ground as if it would protect her.  Her fur fluffed up, making her look a bit larger in her fear.

The aggressive cat didn’t attack again.  “Get,” she ordered, jerking her head towards the scent line she had crossed.

She was silent for a moment.  “I can’t,” she mewed slowly, not wanting to admit it.

“And why not?” the other cat challenged, narrowing her eyes.  “You’ve got four working paws. Use them.”

She thought of a den in a hollow tree and a massive pine tree with a nest at its roots.  “There’s nowhere to go.”

The aggressive cat’s eyes narrowed slightly, and she turned her head to look at the calmer cat, who glanced between the two cats in front of her.  “It couldn’t hurt to ask Pinefern and Jaggedstar for their opinions,” she finally mewed.

The other cat gave a slight sigh and nodded, turning back to the yellow-eyed cat.  “Come with us, then,” she mewed. Not seeing any options for herself - or, at least, any options that would go well - she nodded her head.

The calmer cat padded over to the pile of fish - what was left of it, at least - and pushed the half-eaten fish towards her.  “You can carry that.” She nodded her head, but didn’t move from where she was standing.

The aggressive cat murmured something to the calmer one, who nodded her head in response before she picked up the fish and began padding along the beach.  The smaller cat picked up the half-eaten fish, giving the green-eyed she-cat a wary glance before she padded after her, and the aggressive cat fell into step behind them.

They padded along the sands for a while, before the cat in front of her veered towards the cliffs.  She tensed her muscles and gracefully leapt onto them, turning her head and looking expectantly down at the smaller cat.  Narrowing her eyes at the challenge, the dark-furred she-cat bunched her muscles before she leapt, leaping onto the cliffs - though, she didn’t land nearly as gracefully as the other cat had.  The aggressive cat leapt up after them, urging her on as they scaled upwards. She did her best to evade the touches of the she-cat behind her and keep up with the one ahead of her, her ears flat against her head as she went.

Finally, they emerged into a flat expanse of rock and earth, filled with too many cats for her to count.  She looked around with wide eyes, watching as cats padded in and out of dens, ate meals, and chatted with one another - she had never seen so many cats in one place, not even when she had been in the building where Flake and Flame lived.  

“Go find Pinefern or Jaggedstar,” the aggressive she-cat mewed, flicking her tail towards the calmer one.  “And _then_ go see Pebblenose.  I’ll keep an eye on her,” she added, jerking her head towards the smaller cat.

The calmer cat nodded her head, padding toward a pile of prey to deposit the fish she was carrying - she had never seen anything like that, either - before she padded off in search of whoever the cats she was looking for were.  Seeing no one else around to stop her, the yellow-eyed cat settled down with her meal and began to wolf it down; something she was sure she would regret later, as eating too much too fast was something she had learned not to do early on, but she didn’t have much of a choice now.

Sure enough, the aggressive cat hissed and swatted the back of her head, making her pull away from the larger cat.  “You’re still stealing,” she hissed, voice harsh. “Don’t touch that prey. We caught it, it’s not yours to eat.” The dark-furred cat narrowed her eyes up at her, letting out her own hiss, but the other cat simply bared her teeth in response.  Her attention was caught by movement out of the corner of her eye, and she turned her head to look at the largest cat she had ever seen, the calm cat following at her heels.

 _Woah,_ she thought, _she’s huge_.  But that was an understatement - she was enormous, with long, brown tabby fur.  She had white on her chest and green eyes, along with a bushy tail, and she doubted that if she was sitting up straight she would barely reach her chest - a normal cat could, she was sure, but herself? There was next to no chance of that happening.

The young she-cat’s eyes went wide as she stared up at her, feeling both in awe and intimidated from both her and the threatening she-cat who had attacked her at the same time.

“Good morning,” the massive cat began, offering a small smile.  She dipped her head some as she looked down at her. “Streampaw tells me that her and Bluesky found you on our beaches?”

“Yeah, stealing our prey!” the aggressive cat - Bluesky, apparently - chimed in, giving her a glare.

 _She’s nice, too,_ she thought.

 _Bad thing,_ she internally admonished.   _She’s probably going to hurt you._  

She turned her head to look at the other, smaller she-cat, her eyes narrowing again.  “You left it there!” she snapped. “And I was hungry!”

The big cat let out a sigh.  “Did you not notice our scent markers?” she asked.  “Whether they’re ours or not, most cats don’t take very kindly to having their borders crossed by outsiders.”

She thought of two cats she had thought would have at least tolerated her digging their claws into her pelt, ordered to kill her because of what they believed in.  She crouched close to the ground, looking up at the stranger and pulling her tail close to her side. “Why are you telling me this?” Her voice was softer than she wanted it to be.

The larger cat shrugged one of her broad shoulders.  “I’d rather young cats not get hurt, if I can do anything to help it,” she responded.  “Minding scent lines is one of the simplest ways to keep safe. And if you cross the beaches or cliffs, you’ll be heading straight into other Clan’s territories, so you should know what you’d be in for.”

She slowly nodded her head before another, more pressing concern came to mind.  “What are you going to do with me?”

The cat tipped her head to the side.  “That depends,” she meowed. “Do you intend to steal our prey again? It’s greenleaf right now, and while crossing a boundary isn’t acceptable, we can afford to spare the prey - the same cannot be said when leaf-fall comes.”

She shook her head.  “I can hunt for myself.”

The tabby gave an approving nod.  “And if you pay closer attention to boundary lines,” she mewed - slightly pointedly, but she wore a smile on her face as she spoke - “then I’ll let you off with a warning.  You can go back to where you came from, or get where you’re going. No ill will.”

She stiffened slightly at the thought of going back home - the last place she had ever considered a home had been Soil’s den.  “I can’t go back where I came from,” she meowed, “and I wasn’t going anywhere.”

The enormous cat frowned, her ears flicking back.  “You don’t have any sort of home?”

“No,” she mewed, a bit too quickly and a bit too sharply.  The older cat didn’t comment on her reaction, only nodded her head.

“Would you _like_ to leave?” she asked, flicking one of her ears.

“There’s nowhere to go,” she meowed, allowing herself to relax from her earlier reaction.  She took in a slow, deep breath, hoping the she-cat in front of her wouldn’t notice.

She gave a sympathetic hum, nodding in understanding.  “I’ll have to speak with Jaggedstar,” she meowed, “but WaveClan has a sort of history with taking in strays, so to speak.”

 _If she’s not Jaggedstar, then she must be Pinefern,_ she thought, tilting her head slightly and twitching her ears.  “What does that have to do with me?”

Pinefern chuckled.  “Well, I’d call you a stray.  You’ve got nowhere to go, right?”

Slowly, she nodded her head.  “Yeah,” she meowed.

The tabby’s smile widened.  “So I’ll ask Jaggedstar if it would be alright for you to stay.”

She nodded her head slowly, blinking up at Pinefern.  “Um… okay,” she meowed, surprised at how easy the situation had gone over after she had been brought to wherever she was now.

Pinefern gave another chuckle in response.  “You sit down and stay put for a little while, alright? I’ll find Jaggedstar and talk to him.  I’m sure Bluesky and Streampaw wouldn’t mind answering any questions you have while I’m gone.”

She nodded her head, watching as she padded away.  She pushed herself away from Bluesky some, watching as the massive tabby looked around for the cat she was searching for, unable to stop herself from thinking about how cool and nice she had seemed again.  Her eyes landed on the fish she had been eating. “Can I have that, now?”

Bluesky glanced after Pinefern, then sighed.  “You can have that _one_ , yes,” she mewed, nodding her head.  “We’ll be treating you as a guest, since Pinefern seems to trust you.”

She nodded her head, reaching forwards with a paw and snagging onto a fin with a claw, pulling the fish towards her before she continued to eat.  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Streampaw begin to wash her muzzle idly.

“You didn’t mention a name,” Streampaw mewed.

“Nope,” she responded.

Bluesky offered a slight snort in response to that.  “Gonna presume you either don’t wanna tell us, or you don’t have one,” she mewed.  “Either way, my name is Bluesky.”

“And she’s Streampaw.  The big cat mentioned that.”  She swallowed her mouthful. “I got rid of it.”

“Got rid of what?” Bluesky asked, bewilderedly blinking at her.

“My name.”  She quickly finished up her meal, licking her lips and lifting a paw to clean her whiskers.

Bluesky tipped her head to the side.  “...Okay,” she mewed after a moment. “Did you not like your old name, or?”

Her ears flattened.  “It was fine. But I don’t want it anymore.”

She hummed, but she could tell that Bluesky was confused.  “Alright, I guess.” She shrugged. “Your reasons are your own.  We can’t just keep calling you _her_ or _rogue_ , though.”

The old tom had told her cats could simply point at her, or call her ‘you’.  She had said that cats were always trying to give her names, and he had responded that cats did tend to do that - they didn’t understand cats like them.  She supposed, that if cats were going to keep insisting on calling her something, she might as well make it easy for them.

“I call myself Thing, sometimes,” she admitted.   _More than sometimes, really._

Streampaw let out a hum.  “How’d you come with that?”

The dark-furred cat shrugged her shoulders.  “It just happened.”

Bluesky laughed.  “How does anyone come up with their own name?” she asked.  “I mean, I guess I can see where my parents got ‘Blue’, but I don’t know why Jaggedstar chose ‘sky’.”

“I guess I can see where my mother got ‘Ice’,” Streampaw meowed, “but I don’t know where ‘Stream’ came from.”

The yellow-eyed she-cat folded one of her ears backwards in confusion, looking between the two other cats, not having noticed Pinefern’s return.  Bluesky opened her mouth to respond, only to be cut off by the larger cat.

“Jaggedstar is alright with you staying,” she meowed, making the small cat turn her attention to her.  “The Clan may be a bit wary of you for a while, but no one will harm you while you’re here. Welcome to WaveClan!”

* * *

The she-cat lounged near the edge of camp, her eyes closed as she rested in a patch of sunlight.  It was something she hadn’t had a chance to do in the past leafbare, as the sky had been covered in clouds and overcast, but now that it was newleaf it was starting to become more sunny it was an activity she was happily partaking in again.  Her ears perked as she heard pawsteps heading in her direction, but she didn’t pay it much mind until the pawsteps stopped and the cat spoke.

“Morning, Brownpaw.”

Brownpaw opened her eyes, blinking up at the massive tabby in front of her.  “Hi, Pinefern,” she mewed, her nose twitching.

Pinefern settled down next to the smaller she-cat, a smile on her face.  “I take it you’re enjoying the returning sunshine?”

The apprentice nodded her head, pushing herself into a sitting position.  “I think I like it being warmer better than colder,” she decided, flicking her tail behind her.

The larger cat let out a hum, her whiskers twitching in amusement.  “Even though there’s no snow to eat?” she teased, her tone light.

“I don’t _need_ to eat snow,” Brownpaw mewed, “especially if I have birds instead,” she added, giving a firm nod of her head.

Pinefern laughed, a smile curling onto her muzzle.  “Aw, you’re saying snow isn’t fun?” she inquired innocently, tilting her head to the side.

Brownpaw shook her head.  “It is!” she argued. “But birds taste better.”

The tabby nodded.  “Can’t disagree with you there,” she mewed, “I’ll be glad to eat gull again.”

The brown-and-black she-cat nodded her own head in agreement.  “It’ll be nice not to eat crabs anymore.”

Pinefern hummed.  “Crabs are alright,” she mewed.  “Not as substantial as I would usually prefer, though.”

Brownpaw pulled a face, her nose scrunching in distaste.  “I’m getting tired of tasting them,” she complained. “I’ll never be able to forget what they taste like for the rest of my life.”

Pinefern shrugged her broad shoulders.  “Prey is prey,” she reminded. “We can’t really complain so long as we aren’t starving.”

“I _guess_ so,” Brownpaw mewed, her nose twitching, “but I think I might start having nightmares about crabs, soon.”

The deputy huffed out a laugh, shaking her head with amusement.  “Whatever you say, Brownpaw,” she responded indulgently.

Brownpaw flicked one of her ears.  “Just wait - you’ll see,” she mewed, nodding her head as she spoke.

“I most likely won’t,” Pinefern responded, flicking her bushy tail.  “I can’t exactly see into your dreams.”

“I can tell you about them, though,” Brownpaw argued.  “Then you’ll see how right I am.”

“How will I know you’re telling the truth?” Pinefern questioned, tipping her head to the side.  “I have no way of verifying you.”

Brownpaw tilted her head in return.  “Why would I lie about a crab dream?” she asked.

“To prove a point?” Pinefern offered, shrugging her shoulders.  “Cats do plenty of strange things.”

“Crab dreams seems like the worst thing to prove a point with,” Brownpaw meowed, flicking her fluffy tail.

The larger cat chuckled, shrugging her shoulders again.  “Well, it’s not as though I know what goes on in your mind,” she pointed out.  “But I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

“I’ll keep you updated, then,” Brownpaw told her, wrapping her tail close to her side.  Pinefern hummed, nodding her head, then fell silent for a few moments, a thoughtful look coming over her face.  The apprentice tilted her head up at the deputy, narrowing her eyes up at her. “What’s the quietness for?” she asked, her nose twitching.

Pinefern blinked, turning her head to offer Brownpaw an apologetic smile.  “I wanted to ask you something,” she explained. “I wasn’t sure how to bring it up.”

The apprentice blinked at the older cat.  “Okay,” she mewed, wrapping her tail around her paws.  “What is it?” she asked curiously, tilting her head up at Pinefern.

Pinefern straightened her shoulders before she spoke.  “I wanted to ask you if you would be okay with me adopting you?”

Brownpaw didn’t react for a moment before her eyes widened, surprise overtaking her.  “You - you want… to adopt me?” she asked, not sure if she could believe what her ears were telling her.

The larger cat nodded her head seriously, though she offered Brownpaw a small smile.  “Yes, I do,” she confirmed - her voice was firm but it was also soft around the edges, and her green eyes were warm.  “I would love to call you my daughter, Brownpaw.”

Brownpaw stared up at the enormous cat with wide eyes, her jaws opening and closing as she struggled to find something to say.  She hadn’t thought she’d have a mother again, that anyone would _want_ to be her mother, or call her their daughter - but here she was, with a cat asking to adopt her and saying they’d love to do just that.  After another moment of thought, she realized that if it was _Pinefern_ who was adopting her, she wouldn’t mind, even though there was a time before she had met the she-cat when she thought she didn’t need a cat to take care of her, and a time before that where she had thought she didn’t need anyone at all.

Her mind flashed to all the times where Pinefern had, apparently, been caring for her; times that she hadn’t even realized the older cat had been doing so -

\- _Pinefern nodded with a small smile. “Clans are good for that,” she agreed, her bushy tail thumping against the ground._

_Thing's ears perked as she caught sight of Pinefern's tail. "Doesn't that hurt?" she asked, looking down at her own fluffy tail and thumping it against the ground a few times and wincing at the pain of the action._

_Out of the corner of her eye, Thing could see Pinefern tilt her head to the side. "No?" she mewed back, sounding a bit confused. She glanced down at her tail and twitched it again, thumping it on the stones experimentally. "My fur is thick, I don't usually get injuries from surface-level things like that."_

_"It hurts for_ _me_ _," Thing complained, dipping her head to give her tail a few soothing licks, flattening the soft and fluffy fur there; even if it quickly started rising to its normal position again._

_Pinefern frowned slightly, glancing towards Thing's tail. "Is there something wrong with your tail?" she asked carefully. "Any injuries? Pebblenose can get some herbs to treat you if you need."_

_Thing tilted her head down at it, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't think so," she mewed. Any injuries she had should have healed a while ago; at least, that was how she thought it worked - then again, that bite from her fight with Flake and Flame had been pretty hard. _

_Pinefern gave a soft hum, though there was still a slightly concerned look on her face. "Alright," she assented. "But if anything starts to hurt more, or you don't feel well, tell Pebblenose immediately. She'll take care of you."_

_Thing nodded her head slowly, still not sure if she could trust the medicine cat. She wasn't a part of WaveClan; taking care of her wasn't a part of Pebblenose's job, she was just a cat staying in her den. "Okay," she meowed, even though she wasn't sure if she would. _

_Pinefern offered an approving smile and nodded towards Thing - the corners of the smaller she-cats mouth twitched in her own repressed smile at look. "You know you can have more of this?" she offered, nudging the gull that the larger cat had offered Thing a taste of towards her. "If you're still hungry, that is."_

_Thing's ears perked. "I can?" she asked, leaning forward and sniffing at it._

_Pinefern nodded, nudging it towards her invitingly. "Go right ahead," she purred a laugh. "I'm a capable hunter, if I'm hungry later I can just get more."_

_Thing purred, the sound nearly inaudible as she took a bite. She chewed on the meat happily, enjoying the flavor of it on her tongue.  Pinefern smiled, sitting back as she ate her fill -_

_\- Thing tilted her head at the fish Pinefern had chosen to eat - it was one she'd seen on the fresh-kill pile, but not one she'd ever bothered to try. She leaned forwards to sniff at it curiously, her whiskers twitching as she did so.  Pinefern turned her head to glance at the smaller cat. “Do you want to try some?” she inquired._

_"What is it?" Thing asked, her eyes narrowed as she looked at the fish._

_“Sculpin,” Pinefern replied, lifting a paw and peeling back a layer of scales so she could take a bite of the meat._

_Thing sniffed at it again before she reached forwards, taking a tiny bite out of the fish. The flavor was strange and the meat fell apart in her mouth, coating her tongue, but she decided that it wasn't_ _bad_ _, necessarily._

_Pinefern gave her a small smile as she chewed. “How is it?” she asked._

_Thing pondered for a few moments. "Weird," she decided. "But... I think I'd have it again."_

_Pinefern beamed at that, whiskers twitching. "Excellent!" she mewed, eyes bright. "We'll make a WaveClan cat out of you yet!"_

_Thing's ears perked at the words, and she lifted her head to blink up at the larger cat. "You really think so?" she asked, voice quiet, after a moment of hesitation._

_Pinefern tipped her head to the side. "Of course," she responded, flicking one of her ears._

_Thing's nose twitched, not sure how to reply, but a smile started to slowly creep its way onto her face despite her trying to fight it. A few moments after the smile appeared, she lowered her head to hide it -_

_\- Thing laid down in the corner of camp, her fur still dark and flattened against her skin from the water she'd fallen into, making her look smaller than she usually did. She faced the stone wall of camp, happy to ignore the rest of the area, pushing her interaction with Shadepaw to the back of her mind.  "Thing?" a voice called, sounding confused. Thing's ears perked, and she lifted her head to look up at the larger cat behind her._

_Her eyes were a bit wider and usual, and the confusion in her voice showed on her face, as well. She blinked up at her for a few moments, silent, hesitating before she let out a meek "Hey, Pinefern."_

_“What in StarClan’s name happened?” Pinefern asked, her eyes sweeping over Thing’s drenched form._

_Thing's ears lowered in a mixture of embarrassment and humiliation. "I fell in a Tide Pool," she admitted._

_“A Tide Pool?” Pinefern echoed. “Why were you near a Tide Pool? And how did you fall in?”_

_Thing looked away from Pinefern's face, looking anywhere that wasn't her. "You said that finding prey in leafbare was hard," she began, "so I thought I'd try hunting - so I could help out a little, but I didn't find any land prey and I just... ended up there."_

_Pinefern blinked before she letting out a warm chuckle. “That’s very kind of you,” she mewed. “Are you alright? You weren’t hurt when you fell, were you?”_

_Thing shook her head. "Shadepaw pulled me out," she admitted, doing her best to suppress the urge to glance over at said tom - she was still angry with him for treating her like a fish-brain, after all. She looked back at Pinefern, flicking an ear. "I didn't catch anything, though."_

_“Well, you haven’t really had any training,” Pinefern pointed out. “Especially not with fishing, since as I understand it, you’d never really had them until you came here.”_

_"I taught myself how to hunt," Thing defended. "I thought I could teach myself to fish, too."_

_Pinefern nodded, humming. “Fishing is a bit different from hunting normally, though,” she pointed out. “You can’t exactly chase the fish if you mess up. And hunting in the water makes everything a bit trickier.”_

_"I guess," Thing meowed, shrugging her shoulders. "I didn't know that until I tried, though."_

_“Well, trying is always good,” Pinefern mewed, whiskers twitching as she glanced over Thing’s wet fur again. “Though perhaps you shouldn’t try that again without training, if it results in you being soaked to the bone.”_

_Thing's ears flattened, and an almost-pouty look appeared on her face. "I think I'm going to stay away from water for a moon," she meowed._

_Pinefern laughed, her green eyes crinkling with the action. “Fair enough,” she mewed back, flicking her bushy tail. “Try to dry off for now, okay?”_

_Thing nodded her head. "That's what I'm doing," she meowed. "I don't think I like wet fur."_

_“Well, laying there soaked isn’t helping much either,” Pinefern pointed out. “Try grooming your fur the wrong way.”_

_Thing tilted her head, confused. "The_ _wrong_ _way?" she repeated._

_“Yes,” Pinefern mewed with a nod. “It sticks your fur up so it’s not as clumped together, so it dries quicker.”_

_"Okay," Thing meowed slowly, sitting up. She lifted a paw, narrowing her eyes as she began grooming the fur there the wrong way, cringing at the feeling._

_Pinefern gave an encouraging smile. “You’ll be dry in no time,” She mewed brightly._

_"It feels weird," Thing complained between licks._ _And it's going to take forever , _ _she thought._

_"But it’s better than sitting around soaked,” Pinefern mewed, her tone light but slightly stern beneath that. “You’ll get sick if you’re out in the cold with wet fur for too long.”_

_"Well, I'm already sleeping in the medicine den," Thing meowed, setting down one leg and moving onto the other._

_“Regardless, being sick isn’t fun for anyone,” Pinefern pointed out. “Plus, we only have so many herbs. I’d prefer to take preventive measures.”_

_Thing slowly nodded her head. "I guess," she meowed, nose twitching._

_Pinefern chuckled, dipping her broad head to Thing slightly. “I’ll let you get back to your grooming,” she mewed, sounding amused. “I’m glad you’re alright.”_

_Thing lifted her head, looking up at the she-cat._ _She's glad?_ _she thought, yellow eyes widening slightly. "...Thanks," she finally mewed._

 _“Of course,” Pinefern responded with a purr. With that, the deputy turned away, waving her tail in a silent goodbye as she trotted away_ -

\- _Brownpaw's ears perked at the chant, and she turned her head to look around at all the cats.  Of course, she knew that cats would chant the cats' names after their ceremonies, but the fact that they would be chanting_ _her_ _name along with all the others hadn't completely registered.  She caught onto the tail-end of Pinefern's glance toward her as the deputy chanted the names_ \- _Larkpaw, Currentpaw, Kitepaw, Brownpaw, Thornfire_ \- _her yellow eyes wide as they shifted from cat to cat_ -

\- _“You're a determined and compassionate young cat, and you've chosen to dedicate yourself to this Clan, despite not being born into it," Pinefern told her.  "On top of being a good cat, you're my Clanmate - you're part of us, now."_

_Brownpaw blinked slowly at Pinefern, her whiskers twitching. "You... think I'm a good cat?" she asked, her voice coming out surprisingly meek._

_Pinefern cocked her head to the side slightly. "Of course I do," she responded easily. "You are."_

_Brownpaw felt a smile curl itself onto her muzzle, and she ducked her head to try and hide it, a quiet purr leaving her as she looked down at her paws_ -

\- _"I'd hate to think you'd deny me taking care of you."_

_Brownpaw's ears perked, and she blinked up at Pinefern. "Taking care of?" she echoed, her eyes a bit wider than they normally were._

_Pinefern nodded her head, blinking down at Brownpaw. "Of course," she mewed, flicking one ear. "What did you think I was doing?"_

_"Winning back my good opinion of you?" Brownpaw asked, voice coming out slightly sheepish._

_Pinefern chuckled, shaking her head. "I meant more this whole time, but the answer to that would be the same, I suppose," she mused aloud. "I am sorry for snapping at you, but I don't need that excuse to wish to take care of you."_

_Brownpaw slowly tilted her head. "What do you mean, this whole time?" she asked, one of her ears folding backwards in confusion. "And why do you want to take care of me?" she added, no anger or annoyance in her tone, only her confusion._

_Pinefern blinked at Brownpaw slowly, something imperceptible crossing over her face for a heartbeat before it passed. "I mean since you arrived here," she responded slowly. "And why wouldn't I want to? You deserve to be cared for, so I'm doing it. I don't need a reason more than that."_

_Deserve to be?_ _Brownpaw thought, slowly blinking as she absorbed the words. Pinefern had been caring for her since she arrived at WaveClan, and she hadn't noticed? Well, she supposed it_ _had_ _been a while since she had a cat care about her, and before she found WaveClan she was mostly on her own. She blinked slowly once more, not quite sure how she was supposed to respond._

_Pinefern tipped her head slightly towards Brownpaw, a concerned frown briefly passing over her features. "Would you prefer if I stopped?" she inquired gently._

_"No!" Brownpaw meowed, a bit too quickly, shaking her head just as fast. "No, I don't mind!" she added._

_Pinefern regained her warm smile, and nodded her head. “Alright,” she mewed softly. “As long as you’re comfortable.”_

_"Okay," Brownpaw mewed, her nose twitching. "I uh, I think I can handle being taken care of," she added, her voice coming out a bit softer than she wanted it to._

_Pinefern smiled warmly, bushy tail curling contentedly. “Then I’ll keep doing it,” she mewed with a rumbling purr_ -

\- and maybe some part of her mind thought that the memories would have some sort of an argument stored in them, although it only really served to support the idea that being a part of  Pinefern’s family wouldn’t be so bad.

Besides, her life had already changed a lot: from Mulch’s death to leaving Soil, to finding and leaving the group Flake and Flame were a part of, to meeting and burying the old tom, to joining WaveClan, she had Larkpaw as a friend now and a seemingly never-ending crush on Shademask, and she even had a friend in MarshClan.  What was one more change - one that could only be for the better?

Brownpaw steeled herself before she nodded her head.  “Okay,” she meowed. “I don’t think I’d have a problem with you adopting me,” she added, her voice filled with an amount of confidence she hadn’t thought she had.

Pinefern’s face broke into a wide, warm smile, and a rumbling purr rose up in her chest.  Brownpaw let out her own smile - it was louder than her usual purrs, but still fairly quiet - and a smile curled itself onto her face that she only half-realized was there.  “I’m glad to hear it,” she mewed sincerely. “Thank you, Brownpaw.” She moved forwards slowly - the smaller cat guessed it was to give her time to move away if she wanted to, but this time she decided that she _didn’t_ want to - before she gave her a gentle and fond nuzzle.

“Does this mean I get to call you ‘mom’, now?” Brownpaw asked.

“If you want to,” Pinefern asked, sitting back with her seemingly-immoveable smile in place, “of course.”

Brownpaw nodded her head, her own small smile growing a bit larger and her nose twitching.  “Okay then, Mom,” she purred.

Pinefern let out a laugh.  “Alright then, daughter,” she shot back.


End file.
